Sort of a random question that I didn't think needed its own thread, but I couldn't find a good place to put it.

Recently I was looking at Google Street View in towns all over France. Specifically, I was wondering what suburbs looked like around Paris, but that quickly disintegrated into just looking everywhere out of curiosity.

What I found was that all across France, it looks like almost every household has a front fence or wall with a gate in front of the driveway. It struck me as odd. Why is that? What cultural factors have contributed to this level of "defensible space"? Isn't it a pain in the butt to come home from a long day of work and have to open those gates to your driveways?

I think detached homes in much of Southern Europe have similar walls and gates. Here in the UK those kind of homes often (but not always) have a short wall or fence but not very often a gate. The frontage of the home is usually on public display (and not often used by the residents I think except for parking) but the rear space is more often fenced off for privacy. Big walls and gates at the front is normally only for the largest houses here.